When I was a kid in No. WI, there was an old coot we called Old Frank, who lived about 2 miles into the woods from us, but only in the summer or between snow seasons. He lived in an old pioneer cabin he built himself whenever, nobody knew. He also had water via a windmill he had built and gardened all spring and summer, fresh strawberries almost as big as a kid's fist, then raspberries and then blackberries and various veggies. We used to hike to Boulder Lake and stop at Old Frank's for fresh fruit. When it was time for Old Frank to go live with relatives for the winter, he always stopped at our place and entertained everyone with his self-taught piano playing. He could play anything he heard a couple/three times on the old handcrank radio we had. He loved kids and entertaining us and especially teaching us about nature, tracking, etc, etc.
I neglected to mention that our place was a small summer camp with 24 kids. 4 or 5 of us, due to various family circumstances, stayed year round and we became our 2nd family. The saintly woman who owned the place, called it The Nookery, was Eileen. She had a dream that I was fortunate enough to see her achieve 20 years later when I visited with my then 5 year old daughter. She lived about a mile north of the then Menominee Indian Reservation, now Menominee County, as a result of the Indians choice and vote. Eileen wanted the Nookery to be an Indian orphanage. I think it was a memorial to her husband who had been killed in WWII. When she died, her daughter, 7 years older than me, ran it. I lost track of them after 1970 because of moving and the demands of raising my own family. Someday I think I'd like to drive by there and see if anything is left besides memories. Probably never make it, it's about 90 miles NW of Green Bay, but hopefully my memories will last a few more years. The last time I stayed was 8th grade in 1953/54 after which my "real" family moved to Cincinnati and I became "civilized", hah.
I wish everyone could have had the chance to grow up like I did and had the experiences I had; new siblings every 2 weeks between school sessions, living in the Nicollette(sp?) National Forrest, about 3/4 mile from a white water river, the Wolf River, and able to meet and be befriended and taught real things by the Old Frank's of the world in the five years I was there. God, I miss it. |
